Thursday, February 16, 2012

With the natural lighting of the skylight along with the light that comes through the window in the door, and the two little night lamps on the wall, this space would make a beautiful art gallery.

The wall space is huge, and I could fill in all of that white space with original artwork and prints.

I can collect artwork from Deviant Art, Etsy, and from my own work, and I can find frames at dollar stores and thrift shops.

It would be a great conversation piece at get-togethers, and it would feel so nice, inspiring, and fresh to walk down the art covered hallway.

Hubby and I have lived in this house for 6 months, and drab blank walls are no longer acceptable.

I can't wait to get started. I'll definitely post pictures as I start to add art to the walls. Do you have a gallery in your house? I'd love to see a picture of it. Please feel free to post links to your pictures in the comments.

Monday, February 6, 2012

So delicious the inlaws said it tasted just like their recipe. I cruised the internet looking for a simple peanut butter cookie recipe that did not contain dairy, and after some tweaking I finally found one that my picky hubby will eat!

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix ingredients in bowl until well blended. (Due to the nature of the ingredients it's best to refrigerate the dough until it's cool. Otherwise the dough is too sticky to roll into a ball so you can make drop cookies instead, which is what I did.) Place (and flatten) your balls or dropped dough blobs onto a baking sheet. Bake for approximately 10 minutes until golden brown.

These cookies are so moist they need a moment to cool on the sheet or they will break apart. Even after they cool they do tend to break a little, so if I find a solution I'll be sure to update this. I'm thinking more flax seed.

Some random tidbits of info:

* 1/3 cup applesauce is a great substitute for 1 egg.* consume ground flax seed otherwise you don't get the same nutrients* the cookies will taste the best if you use a very simple peanut butter. The one I used has the ingredients listed as: organic peanuts, organic palm oil, natural cane sugar, and sea salt.* use parchment paper for easy removal of baked goods and super easy clean up

Sunday, February 5, 2012

After some technical difficulties and an endless amount of mind-changing, I'm excited to say that my new website http://www.1337art.com is open for business! As I continue to add inventory to the site you will have the option to pick and choose which color and size options you want without having to wade through a lot of similar listings, as it currently is in my Etsy shop. You can also purchase an item without having to register for an account with the option of paying via PayPal or Google Checkout!

For my blog readers please use the coupon below to get Free Shipping at http://www.1337art.com this includes my International readers too.

freeship12

I can't wait to get back into my studio to make many more (and new!) designs. I am currently taking custom orders in case you want to get a personalized/custom piece of jewelry for yourself or a loved one. Click here for more info.

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

It's not easy to find a venue to sell your handcrafted items, your craft supplies, or your vintage finds. Sometimes a major venue like Etsy.com or Artfire.com can make major changes that will effect your business negatively.

Some people feel that there are no alternatives out there for selling their items other than Etsy, Artfire, or even Ebay. But there are two sites out there that are slowly gaining momentum, and they both offer great tools to help you succeed with your business.

The first alternative is Zibbet.com. It is Australia based, however, anyone in the world can set up shop. They currently have a free basic account where you can list up to 50 items for free, and they also have a month-to-month premium account as well as a yearly premium account. Currently their monthly price is $9.95 and their yearly price is $79.00. At the time of this post they are offering a free 45 day premium trial using code 45FREE, and it expires in 3 days.

I opened my Zibbet Shop in 2009, and to date I have sold 2 items. They do not have much internal traffic, and their site can be slow. But their admin is quick to answer questions, and there are a lot of great items for sale. The listing process is easy, and you can import your Artfire and/or Etsy shop items into your Zibbet shop using their free importer.

The other alternative is Craft is Art. It's a fairly new marketplace that accepts supplies, vintage items, and handmade items. They offer you the option to accept payments via Google Checkout, Amazon Payments, Authorize.net, PayPal, and Checks/Money Orders.

They have a basic pay as you go account as well as a premium monthly or yearly account. Premium accounts can offer multiple quantities, variances (colors, sizes, etc.), and so much more. You can either pay a monthly fee of $8.99 or you can pay for a year for only $79.99. You can also import your Etsy and/or Artfire shop items into your Craft is Art shop as well as your feedback score if you choose to.

They also offer you the opportunity to have a free for life account if you refer 5 people to open a premium shop. I need only two more people to use my referral codes, and my shop there will be free!

If you plan to go premium there (either monthly or yearly) please use one of my referral codes:

7H5C6

85FUY

To check out their full list of options and tools follow the link below:

Craft is Art is very quick to submit your products to Google, and you can set up your Google Analytics account so you can track your traffic. I've sold 3 items there to date in my shop, and I get a lot of internal traffic as well as traffic from search engines. I only have 17 items for sale there at the moment, but I have very high hopes that my business will be successful on this venue.

Etsy and Artfire succeed through their sellers, but if their sellers leave to other venues, these new venues can succeed too. It's the beginning of the year and now is a great time to think long and hard about your business, and what you believe will help you succeed.

Saturday, January 7, 2012

Or she acts like she was a dog in another life. I bought her a pack of plastic coil toys, and she loves them so much that she actually fetches them and brings them back to me like a dog.

Katniss's favorite color appears to be blue, because that's the toy she plays with the most. If I pick up the blue toy I have her immediate attention, and when I throw it across the room she runs, picks it up in her mouth, and runs back over to me.

Of course I have to take it and throw it again because it's just so darn cute. Sometimes she gets smart and when she comes back over she lays on the toy so I can't get to it.

Sometimes I throw it to a tough place, and she can't reach it so she will circle the area and cry until she can find it.

I bought these toys from Vitacost. My husband didn't believe the cats would even play with them.

Friday, January 6, 2012

An amazing cake decorator. I suppose it's doable now, but I've missed so many years of practice.

One year for my mom's birthday I decided to make her a three layer cake. Unfortunately somehow it fell in on itself, and it was so odd my brother that eats everything didn't even want it.

One year for my anniversary I made my husband some cookies with monkey and dragon shaped cookie cutters. Somehow they didn't hold their shape so he had to go by my word that they were in fact the monkeys and dragons...only blobs.

Apparently baking is just not my thing, but I still enjoy the attempt. I think the closest I will get to be an amazing cake decorator is the fun of making shaped baked goods for my husband's birthday and future kids' birthdays.

I think I'll stick to the beads. :]

The picture is a dog cake from Albertson's that I bought for my mom's birthday last year.